This is not an easy review to write. I'll start with the positive. Mara blew us away at the tasting. The food was great, the prices were significantly under the other quotes we received and she was focused on local/sustainable food which we rea...lly cared about. The problem here is that Mara & her team over promised and significantly under delivered.
The first disengagement I noticed was during planning about a month prior to the wedding when I could not get Mara to respond to my emails or phone calls. Our other vendors were also having a really difficult time engaging her for coordination.
On the day of, she did not show up which was our expectation and which was never communicated otherwise nor did she appropriately plan/prepare her staff to handle the event without her.
They were incredibly understaffed, the bar garnishes and mixers were gone half way through cocktail hour, enough glassware wasn't ordered, there wasn't enough fry oil, the food styling that we discussed didn't happen...
But, one of my biggest disappointments in all of this, is that the staff did not know what they were serving. We had special dietary restrictions that were requested – when asked, servers could not say what had dairy, what didn’t, what was vegan, what was gluten free, etc. This was the very first thing I asked Mara about when I reached out to her about being our caterer. She also said that she would provide signage to indicate this, which wasn't done.
Cleanup was rough on our remaining staff at the end of the night. So much so, that it had to finish in the morning. Their truck left two hours before the event was over and didn't take any trash with it. The kitchen area was left in total disarray.
All of this caused both our Wedding Planners and the Rental Company to compromise their contracted services to us in order to help the catering team execute. We received additional bills from these other vendors because of this which were also not insignificant amounts and which Mara was unwilling to cover from her side.
The only reason I have not gotten lawyers involved is because I think the lawyer would cost more than this is worth. But the side of me that believes in standing up for what is right in the world did not let this go easily. As we also feel there were contracted services on the catering side that were missed.
I tried to work this out with Mara and come to an understanding about what happened. If she had even bothered to respond to my concerns and offer an explanation I would not have written such a candid review, because stuff happens, you know? But given that lack of ownership over the issues and a lack of willingness to do anything to resolve it I was left with no other choice.
It's a shame for all that delicious food to be unappreciated because of the execution.